The discovery and development of antibiotics over the last century has led to a dramatic reduction in deaths from infection - they are truly miracle drugs. Penicillin has practically eliminated deaths from infectious diseases. Before 1942, if you got cut deeply, you were pretty much a gonner. The Staphylococcus areus bacteria that normally live peacefully on the surface of your skin would get into your blood supply, penetrate your bones, and set up shop and start replicating itself until you were dead. In the US Civil War, they routinely hacked off limbs of anyone with a deep-cut injury. Pneumonia was often fatal. Tens of thousands of people died every year from rheumatic heart disease, which was caused by infection with the Streptococcus in childhood. Gonorrhea and Syphilis infections were rampant. All of these problems were eliminated with the discovery of penicillin.
However not all infections are created equal; they can be caused either by bacteria or viruses. Bacteria and viruses differ in that viruses need a host to replicate (i.e. the cells of your body) while bacteria can live independently. Antibiotics work only against bacteria; they are useless against viruses. Viruses cause the common cold, most sore throats, the flu, and many gastrointestinal infections. In spite of the fact that physicians routinely prescribe antibiotics for the treatment of colds, sore throats, and stomach pain, since these conditions are typically caused by viruses antibiotics are useless, and these physicians are actually causing harm by increasing the number of antibiotic resistant bacteria, with absolutely no benefit for the individual patient. In fact, most viral infections are not life threatening and are little more than an inconvenience that can be treated effectively with rest and time. Treatment with an antibiotic has no effect in terms of improving symptoms of these illnesses. Yet half of all antibiotics are prescribed for viral illnesses or other disorders for which they have no use.
Remember too that while some bacteria are harmful and even fatal, hundreds of other types inhabit our bodies for our entire lives, and have useful effects on our health. For instance, bacteria inhabit the colon and intestines, and aid in digestion by providing useful substances that assist absorption of food and vitamins, including folate and the B vitamins. Taking too many antibiotics inhibits our natural flora, and in the process we can become malnourished and vitamin-deficient. These same bacteria also neutralize the bile salts and liver toxins dumped into our intestines and colon. Repeated treatments with antibiotics decrease these helpful bacteria, and can lead to problems with digestion and other health problems.
Over the last past half century there has been a dramatic increase in the production of antibiotics, from 2 million pounds per year in 1954 to over 50 million pounds per year today in the US. Most of those antibiotics are being given to farm animals. With the shift of agriculture in the US from pasture grazing of animals to feed lots there has been a need to provide massive amounts of antibiotics to farm animals to prevent epidemics of disease. Another advantage of giving antibiotics to farm animals is that it promotes growth. Although it is not know why antibiotics promote growth some ideas include the possibility that antibiotics eliminate bacteria that consume nutrients in the gut, thus allowing for more uptake of nutrients by the host (i.e. the farm animals).
There is no reason to believe that these effects are not transferable to humans. Indeed the massive exposure to antibiotics in the meat that we eat, in runoff from farms into the drinking water, in addition to the antibiotics we are given for a variety of disorders (which may or may not be responsive to antibiotics) may have contributed to the current epidemic of obesity. I looked at data presented at a conference of the Emory Predictive Health Institute showing that depletion of colonic bacteria by antibiotics caused changes in concentrations of hormones like leptin that directly influence appetite. These studies suggest that massive overuse of antibiotics may have directly contributed to the obesity epidemic that we are wrestling with today. There is some evidence that decreases in helpful colonic bacteria can cause changes in hormones that regulate the feeling of hunger, making people more hungry and that too has contributed to the obesity problem.
Over the last 50 years an increasing number of bacteria have become resistant to older antibiotics. Bacteria multiply very rapidly, so when large numbers of bacteria are exposed to an antibiotic, this increases the possibility it will change ever so slightly, and become resistant to the antibiotic. Naturally the antibiotic-sensitive bacteria die out, while the antibiotic-resistant bacteria flourish. For example, the Methicillin resistant-bacteria Staphylococcus areus developed a strong outer wall that prevented penicillin from penetrating and exerting its effects. These bacteria flourished while the penicillin-sensitive bacteria died out.
Ironically, the development of drug-resistant bacteria favors pharmaceutical companies, because the rise of new strains of resistant bacteria often coincided with old drugs going off patent, like methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (staph infection). In the past 20 years, there has been over a 13-fold increase in the number of bacteria resistant to methicillin. These events required the development of newer, more expensive antibiotics that companies can accurately argue are better than the old drugs.
You can be sure that resistance will grow to new antibiotics as well, or that newer, stronger versions of antibiotics will come with even greater risk to the taker because of their greater power. Better antibiotics weed out the weak bacteria. Because of "survival of the fittest" the bacteria that are left on the playing field at the end of the day are even more resistant to the antibiotics that we currently have. One antibiotic resistant "superbug" often emerges and multiplies.
One hundred thousand people die in the hospital every year from bacterial infections that are largely related to drug-resistant bacteria that evolved from careless use of high-powered antibiotics given for non-life threatening infections, or used in the wrong way. Many scientists and infectious disease specialists predict that we may get to the point where we can't find any new medications that will treat these new forms of bacteria. For instance, new strains of the bacteria Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA (which are highly resistant to antibiotics) are becoming more common. What was previously a simple cut on the finger could grow into something that could kill you in a few days. The number of MRSA cases is growing exponentially.
Another particularly dark outcome of antibiotic overuse is when it results in the development of Clostridium difficile, which happens when the normal bacteria of the colon are wiped out. Clostridium difficile usually attacks hospital patients who have been on multiple antibiotics that have wiped out their normal colonic bacteria. Clindamycin was the antibiotic most commonly associated with Clostridium difficile in the 1970s, due to a combination of the facts that it was more commonly used in the hospital in debilitated patients and had a greater capacity to wipe out normal bacterial flora than other antibiotics. Now for similar reasons the second and third generation antibiotics, including cefuroxime, cefotaxime, ceftazidime, and ceftriaxone, are more commonly associated with Clostridium difficile.
Other antibiotics that commonly cause this infection are Ampicillin and Amoxicillin. It is an especially drug-resistant bacteria and is responsible for 3 million cases of diarrhea and inflammation of the colon and 5000-20000 deaths each year. The newer strains of this bacteria are becoming more toxic and more deadly, and are now resistant to antibiotics like the fluoroquinolones to which they were previously susceptible.
Learn more about alternatives to medications and hidden risks of prescription medications in 'Before You Take That Pill: Why the Drug Industry May be Bad for Your Health: Risks and Side Effects You Won't Find on the Label of Commonly Prescribed Drugs, Vitamins and Supplements', by researcher and physician J. Douglas Bremner, MD.
